


Lone Wolf

by spookyawards_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-09-12
Updated: 2003-09-12
Packaged: 2019-04-27 06:03:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14419200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookyawards_archivist/pseuds/spookyawards_archivist
Summary: Even the lone wolf needs a friend in his aging years. Some one who understands his song.





	Lone Wolf

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Spooky Awards](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Spooky_Awards), and was moved to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project in 2018. I tried to reach out to all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are the creator and would like to claim this work, please contact me using the e-mail address on [SpookyAwards' collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/spookyawards/profile).

 

Lone Wolf

## Lone Wolf

### by Foxhunt2blue

Title: Lone Wolf  
Author: Foxhunt2blue  
Summary: Even the lone wolf needs a friend in his aging years. Some one who understands his song. Rating: PG-13  
Keywords: AU, M/K Angst, Post-colonization, mention of character death (small one)  
Disclaimer: Nope don't own them---never did. Feedback: The muse is hungry just watch your fingers! ;-) E-mail: or  
Author's note: This one is for the biggest Krycek fans I know. CC be damned! Hope you enjoy it Fro & Logan! 

* * *

October 13, 2022 

Ten years have come and gone since they swarmed down from the stars, but still he watches the night sky. 

Once long ago my father had been an  
outcast in the eyes of his peers. On that fateful day---revealed by the darkest of evils---he became the hero for a nation of terrified people. He led the rebels against the invaders with a passion that blinded even the strongest. 

I was ten years old at the time, yet my memories are beginning to fade. 

His strength came from a woman who was the most delicate looking of creatures, his spirit, my mother. 

She is no more than a misty vision to me now. A cloud of fire, a faint scent that haunts my dreams. 

For him though she is the grief that will not cease--an unending nightmare of what-ifs. 

I think that if it were not for me he might have allowed himself death long ago. Now though I'm a man and the trip he has taken every year for the past nine years scares me. 

When the war had ended we had returned  
to the New Mexico desert. He seemed to  
believe that someone would come for us  
even after all the blood shed, but they didn't. 

At least I don't believe they did. 

That's why I'm here now--lurking among the cliffs--wanting to know what there is out there so important he must make this pilgrimage. 

* * *

Fox groaned at the ache in his knees as he slowly worked his way to the top of the plateau. Pebbles of dried earth skittered beneath his boots and roots tugged at his worn jeans as he cursed beneath his breath. 

He was getting too old for this, he thought, too damned old. 

At sixty-two he was in better shape than some, but his joints still ached. 

He had decided on that day nine years ago--as he had laid Scully to rest--that the man he had been no longer existed. Mulder had died with Scully it was just that simple. All that was left was a stranger named Fox. 

Packing the few belongings he possessed, he had wrapped his son in a faded blanket and drove away from the only life he had ever known. 

At the time he had no idea where he was headed or even why he was leaving. All he knew for sure was that there was a presence out there calling to him, drawing him to a place where he could finally rest. 

Days had passed into weeks---weeks into months, then he had found himself back in New Mexico. A narrow canyon greeted him along with what remained of the hidden pueblos of the Anasazi. 

This lonely place of red-hued cliffs and the rare twisted piece of vegetation had become home. 

William had never complained. He was a quiet, studious boy and often spent hours on his own in the shadows of the cliffs. What he did, Fox never ask. 

And so time passed measured not in hours, but in the seasons. 

* * *

It was on his first birthday here that he had heard the whisper that drew him to the plateau. 

The voice was familiar---the call powerful. 

He had been fifty-two then, the gray not so prominate in his dark hair, his joints not so old. He had woke to the pale light of the cresent moon, playing across the floor of the pueblo. A cold wind crept through the cracks and caressed his face reminding him of a long ago kiss. 

He hadn't understood the soft Russian words then, but later he had learned. 

<Good luck to you---my friend>

Slipping from his sleeping pallet, he had climbed to the top of the plateau. The crisp air filling his lungs, the blanket of sparkling stars his only light as the moon set in the west. From some point far out in the darkness the forlorn song of a lone wolf had drifted to his ears. 

A memory of sharp green eyes came to him as he sat beneath the stars waiting. 

* * *

So the years passed and with each one he watched his son grow to manhood. The only human contact they had was with a small group of Native Americans who had survived the final conflict. Trading with their neighbors for things they could not find here in the desert was all the human contact he could abide, with the exception of William or Running Rabbit as the tribe had come to call him. It suited him because he spent his days running through the dusty canyon, lightfooted and faster than the desert wind. 

Each year he would find himself drawn to the same plateau and he waited knowing that it was a ghost he waited to see. Sooner or later he knew William would want to know why, but how could he explain something he didn't understand himself? 

* * *

Tonight as he struggled to the top, the voice that led him here was telling him this would be his last trip. 

Behind him was the past and before him lay a future that he had sought for a long nine years. 

Tonight he wasn't alone. 

In the shadows below his son watched with curious eyes---no longer a boy, but a man. 

Standing beneath the gnarled pine that had become his only companion on these solitary journeys was a face from the past. Almost twenty years had passed since that deadly confrontation in the shadowy parking garage. 

"Alex?" His voice trembled as he spoke a name he knew could not be true. 

The figure turned and he felt his chest tighten. 

So many years he had ran alone---both of them had---but now the impossible rose up from the past. 

"Mulder." 

"Mulder died a long time ago," he answered the ghost. 

Soft laughter drifted across the space between them. A space as wide and as deep as the years that had passed. 

"Did you really think it was that easy? A slip of the trigger finger and I was gone?" Stepping from the shadows Alex Krycek smiled. 

Gone was the green agent as well as the annoying thorn in Fox's side. Here was a man who was tired and beaten, yet had refused to give in. His once smooth skin now darkened with sun, creased with lines that told a story of a life lived on the run. Rich, dark, mink hair now hung past his shoulders streaked with silver, but the eyes were the same. 

Sharp glistening emeralds. 

"It wasn't me. They could never get me to pull the trigger, so they gave a soulless creature my face." 

"I saw the body." 

"You saw a body---not mine. Amazing what a little plastic surgery can accomplish. Old smokey knew the game well. Scarier what a man is willing to do for his fifteen minutes of fame." 

"I knew you were coming." He whispered to an enemy he had thought long dead. "I just didn't want to believe." He ran trembling hands through silver hair, hot tears burning his eyes as he tried to understand. 

"You just never saw the truth Fox even when it was staring you in the face. The enemy of your enemy is your friend." 

"I'm so tired," the words caught in his throat. 

"So am I," came the answering whisper. Krycek's shoulders slumped his eyes filling with tears just as Mulder's had. 

In the distance a wolf sang out---it's voice sad and mournful. 

"It's done. Even the lone wolf needs a friend in his aging years. Some one who understands his song." 

Fox lifted his eyes to Alex's face, studying the features he had come to hate so long ago. So many deceptions, he thought, so many dark deeds visited upon them both. How could he forgive these wrongs? 

Then it came to him. 

Mulder had died, he had been buried. 

Moving across the distance he stepped close enough to smell the perspiration on the green-eyed stranger. 

Krycek had died as well. He had vanished into the trenches of war and now only Alex remained. A lone warrior who had always been more than just an enemy. Now he knew all those years ago that the visions before him were nothing, but his own guilt over a murder committed in the name of justice. 

Nothing more. 

Lifting his arms he pulled Alex into his body, tightening his grip. With a sigh Alex rested his head against Fox's shoulder, his body shuddering. 

"Welcome home Wolf," he whispered in the trembling man's ear. "You aren't alone anymore." 

* * *

From my perch in the shadows I listened to the words of two men who had fought against each other for far too long. As they clung to each other beneath the swollen moon I smiled at the soft whisper in my ear. 

"About damn time." 

Turning my eyes widened at a face I had let slip away too easily. Her eyes were far bluer than I had thought, but her hair was just as I remembered it---a wild cloak of fire. 

"Mom?" 

She leaned forward her gossamer lips caressing my cheek. "You've grown into such a beautiful man---so much like your father." 

I watched with tear-filled eyes as she faded away into the shadows. My heart swelling with pride at the family I had. Now it was time for me to embrace a new one and she had come back to say a final good-bye. 

In the distance the answering songs of two more wolves joined the first that had filled the cold night air. 

Standing up I moved to where my father stood with the man I would come to know as simply Lone Wolf. 

The End   
  


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